Skeptic Project

Today at a job fair, while I was talking to someone at a table, I heard a woman in her 40s or 50s get told at a nearby table she had been out of the workforce for too long for their company to consider her.

As I left the job fair, I saw this woman crying near a pair of vending machines near the exit. I stopped to grab a snack for the train ride home. The woman came up to me and asked for a dollar and a quarter to get a bottle of water. I obliged, and told her what I heard a recruiter say to her. The woman got her water then poured out her troubles and life story to me: 2 children, unemployed for 2 years. She had a good job prior to financial crisis, lost that job, took a lower paying position to support herself and her children, lost that job as well, lost her home, saw her credit destroyed and she's been stuck ever since.

When you see this kind of thing right in front of your face, you can't ignore it. This long term joblessness and some of the abuses being committed by some employers really have to stop. These are the people who need money most...and if they have it, they'll probably use it. Yet they're getting screwed.

I cried part of the way home on the train thinking about this. I was floored that the recruiter told her straight up she's been unemployed for too long. I can't think of a word for that, other than cruel.

I just wanted to share this on the site today.

That's the nature of the current job market unfortunately. Granted I have never heard "unemployed for too long" as a reason to deny employment, but it doesn't surprise me. It's sad though, and I wish her good will.

@Wolf Bird you just made me really sad by that story and I feel bad for calling Alex Jones fat now. Just from my perspective it seems to me the people who actually need the jobs who actively are looking for them can't have them and the people who are getting the jobs are really not stand up people or deserving to begin with but that is the way of business. I would agree that what happened to her is horrible as I would also agree that life is unfair.

If I had it my way anybody wanting to work should be able to work (in a way they can) but like I said life is unfair. I've often went out of my way to hire someone others would deem unhirable and yes I've hired fat people as well so I guess I'm my own worst hypocrite. If I have rejected someones application I just don't send them a simple rejection notice, I send them information on why they were rejected as well as info on what they could do better in. Sometimes I will even state that someone I interviewed needed the job more than they did but to please send a application in at a later time if hiring again.

Recruiters are just doing their jobs and I am not saying what the recruiter is saying is nice but the recruiter is simply being honest. I appreciate a person being honest and cutting to the chase then a individual who is liar and out right never tells the person in this instance why their not going to get hired. I often think many recruiters need to be way more honest with the people they don't hire. This whole recruiter mind set of being fake nice to people attitude isn't really honest and in more ways then one isn't really nice to the people wanting to get hired.

I think the toughest thing for a person to admit is the truth to themselves because in fact the truth hurts more than the fantasy land they would like to think of themselves as. I try my best to hire people who are otherwise unhirable. I tell these people the truth which is of my opinion and in return I would hope they do the same for me as well. Matter in fact I've helped people to become hirable by teaching them a particular skill sets and I even made the obese exercise to the extent that they lost weight and are pretty healthy.

It's just to hard to employ such practices to everyone who wants a job as well as I don't think any job recruiter employs such practices to everybody as well for obvious reason. The most sympathetic thing a person can do in the end is tell the truth. I think it's far more cruel to not tell the truth because someones feelings may get hurt and just string someone along than to just cut to the chase and maybe even help them out. If a recruiter said that to me I'd look at that as a positive and something to work on but I suppose it's a catch 22 that she needs a job but since she's been out of the workforce so long they deem her unhirable therefore I'd ask the job recruiter if they have and internship spots open in the company in a attempt to get experience as well as that company potentially hiring you when a position needs to be filled. Their has be people out their willing to work with people such as her.